Saturday, 21 July 2012

I pay around £700 on road tax and insurance per year to be able to drive on the roads of the UK.

And this morning, in the space of 10 minutes, bike riders made me so angry. If I had my way, unless they were insured and paid road tax, I'd ban them on the roads.

Now I know that there will be loads of people who will be up in arms at my comments, but it's my blog and I have the right to say what I think.

I was sat at traffic lights at a major junction in Cambridge this morning, waiting for the lights to turn green, when a woman on a bike came up the inside of me and just turned left and joined the traffic, causing a car to have to pull over to miss her, and cross over into the oncoming lane, almost causing a crash. Obviously the red light didn't apply to her!

If he'd have hit the woman, then he'd have probably killed her and ended up in a court accused of bad driving.

And within ten minutes, I got stuck behind two girls riding bikes, side by side in the middle of the lane, dawdling along and chatting, oblivious to two things - the bike lane to their left, and the fact they were holding up traffic.

Now while I come to mention it - bike lanes - why should we have them? Bike riders contribute nothing in the way of vehicle tax, and they don't pay insurance, so why do we have to have bike lanes? Keep them off the road.

The alternative as I see it, is to make them take a proper test to prove their competency on a bike when on the road, and make them pay tax and insurance.

And speaking of competency, what the hell do parents think they're up to letting 4 and 5 year olds ride their bikes on main roads? As a driver, they frighten me to death. Yes Dad can be riding his bike up front and Mum can be behind, but can they guarantee that if their darling child should fall off that they're going to be able to scoop them up before some horrible accident happens?

I know it doesn't help living near Cambridge where we've got more bike riders than enough. The trouble is with such large numbers of bike riders in and around the town centre, so many of them are like thugs - they fly by you, many times close enough to catch you if you're carrying anything. Lots feel like they own the road and pavements as well.

Whilst walking through the town the other day I encountered someone having a go at a bike rider for riding on the pavement when the pavement was already full of pedestrians.

Thursday, 12 July 2012

When I get up in the morning, it’s not until I’ve had a wash and get my glasses on that I remember I’m no longer the 20 year old I still think I am.

That’s OK, I can live with that. That, my receding hairline, and the enlarging belly.

However it’s not until I sit at my computer to survey my morning’s emails that I realise other people think I’m old too.

Now not for one minute am I going to assume that I understand how all these companies manage to profile me by what I look at on the internet, but one thing’s for sure. ‘They’, whoever they are, seem to know what age group I’m in and I appear to be getting targeted emails. This I’m sure about

Why? Mainly because of the amounts of email I get and what their subjects are. Let me give you an example of what appeared in my mailbox today.

Subject: James, You may be eligible to receive a power chair or scooter at little to no cost. It then goes on to tell me how I can get one of those scooters, that at the minute, either hit me up the side of the legs, or clatters me on the pavement as a geriatric Jenson Button heads for the nearest Starbucks!

Subject: It takes seconds to calculate your claims with our injury calculator. Now I’m not sure whether this is so that when I turn my motorised scooter over and get crushed by it, or because I get beaten up by someone who I run into, I don’t know.

Subject: We can help you use your stairs again. It then goes on to say that (company name) Stairlifts can help you and your family, (They think I’d share it?) once again, have full use of the home you love. They’ve obviously been in contact with the motorised scooter company and decided that if I can’t walk about very well, that I’m going to struggle with my stairs as well.

Subject: We're here to help make bathing a pleasure again. Now this company, having found out that I need a motorised scooter to run people over when I’m in town, and can no longer get up my stairs without a stairlift, seem to have realised that I now can’t navigate my way into a both or shower anymore. So now I need walk in bathing solutions!

Subject: High Quality Electric adjustable beds for the elderly and disabled at low factory direct prices. Well obviously, after I’ve had to go out shopping with my motorised scooter, made it up the stairs with my stairlift, and bathed in my walk in bath, I’m obviously going to need help getting into bed.

Now if all of the above aren’t bad enough, the next two are getting personal.

Subject: stop and reverse male baldness in its tracks with oral treatment that's effective in 95% of patients. Thanks for that! I think they may be a bit late for me as I’ve been steadily losing my hair for the last 20 years. However, this may have been the first email that affects me directly.

And now the one I’ve been waiting for.

Subject: Don't let erection problems keep you from a more satisfying sexual experience. Wahey!!!!! Viagra. That’s the baby. Now they’ve really sussed me out. If I can’t get around without my motorised scooter, need a stairlift to help me get upstairs to my walk in bath, and have eventually managed to get into bed, then I’m definitely going to need some Viagra. I take it I’ll be needing that so that I don’t fall out of my new electric bed as I certainly won’t be fit enough to have some fun with a lady.

The reason I know this is because, I haven’t had even a sniff of an email regarding mail order brides. I know there must be someone out there peddling them via email.

Now all of this would be funny if it wasn’t true. So is it that once you reach 50, all these companies decide that you’re just about to fall to pieces?

How do these companies find out my email address for starters? And when they do, how do they know I’m not one of the 18-30 holiday set? Why aren’t I getting the emails about dating girls in my area?

Now somehow or other, these companies seem to be profiling me. It must be happening, because why would I be getting email in such a narrowly targeted area?

Saturday, 5 May 2012

Yesterday on facebook I took park in what was called 'TIMELINE: May The 4th Be With You.'See it hereThe idea was that during the course of the day, you took a photo of something relating to your life. At the end of the day, when I looked at the photos, it was amazing the variety of things people did.I can only say it has inspired me to undertake a little project of my own. I an calling it 'One A Day' and my aim is to take one photo about something relating to what I'm up to each day.I think my life is pretty boring, so I'm really hoping I can find at least one photo opportunity per day.I'll put it on here and see how it pans out and how long I can keep it up for.Anyway, here's my first photo - it was taken just after midday today.

It's a photo across the car park of my local Tesco in Bar Hill. I was just on my way out after having been in the shop. Now we say the country's skint, but judging by the amount of cars in the car park, I'm not so sure.

Inside the shop was heaving and there was plenty of money being spent, not just on weekly shopping , but on plenty of luxuries too. TVs, DVDs, Phones, and loads of other things.

The photo shows just two sections of the car park and what you can see is possibly about a tenth of the car park.